LATEST ARTICLES

Grant Rumley

Grant Rumley

In his 13-plus years as President, he has grown increasingly paranoid. Reports surfaced in February that the he had been wiretapping thousands of Palestinians—rivals and allies alike—with the CIA’s help. Among those wiretapped was Mahmoud al-Aloul. Abbas clearly sees Aloul as someone who could one day succeed him. Perhaps international observers should, too....

Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh

Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries criticize each other regularly, but recently the level of invective among the ruling elite has reached new heights. The vicious infighting between President Hassan Rouhani and his detractors now threatens the governing edifice of the Islamic Republic. Given the clerical regime’s aggressive foreign policy and nuclear ambitions, it is in America’s interest to see this power struggle intensify....

Kaniz Fatma, New Age Islam

If there is one thing that distinguishes Sufis, it is their sense of high morality. They are known for their love for humanity. They take exceptional care not to hurt anyone’s feelings. They are not limited only to certain religious dogmas. They aim at attaining the pleasure of Allah Almighty in its true essence....

Fatima Barkatulla

She is often mentioned in our times as an icon of female empowerment, who knew what she wanted (to marry the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ) and wanted it now! Failing that, she is identified as a successful CEO, her story misappropriated to fit a capitalist, materialist worldview, where economic worth is the only one worthy of mention. In one BBC radio programme I participated in, it was implied that if more Muslim women were empowered to be more like her the Muslim world would be a much better place!...

Roshaneh Zafar

Roshaneh Zafar

They say “the smallest coffins are the heaviest” and sadly, Pakistan carries a heavy burden on its shoulders. As a nation, we have repeatedly failed to protect our children and the murder in January of Zainab, a seven-year-old girl who was brutally raped, strangled to death and thrown on a pile of garbage in Kasur was the final nail in the coffin....

BEST OF BEFORE ARTICLES

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Unquestionably,
today's Ulema and Islamic theologians find themselves incapable to provide
incisive guidance in modern societies, because their medieval interpretations
of the Islamic theology are patently out of date. Without understanding how
history changes society and persons, how can the Ulema be the thought leaders
in their community?....

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

Having failed to establish its case by telling lies upon lies about the Qur'an in their recent submission as reported by the media and exposed by this writer in his last two articles [3-5], the advocates of triple Talaqs an Islamic custom, have taken to a labyrinthine legal argument to support their case. It is reminiscent of labyrinthine Fatwas by terror groups who will cite opinions of different scholars of different era and overwhelm the lay reader into accepting their views but the world knows they are terrorists and so are those who advocated instant triple Talaq…

Moin Qazi, New Age Islam

Moin Qazi, New Age Islam

The motif that
binds the symphony of faith into a symbol of hope is love. Where love is, there
God is. Love is that flame which when
it rises, burns everything, only God remains. The whole individuality is
dissolved in the ocean of eternal bliss .Love is the attribute of God. We all
share the same spark of the divine. God is every person's goal. He is the ultimate beloved .To be in love with
other than Him is metaphorical love. ..

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

…. analysis of the verse, individually, as well as in conjunction with
its immediately succeeding and qualifying verse 16:44 leaves no doubt that the
verse was addressed to the Prophet, the word Zikr denotes the previous
revelations, and the expression Ahl e Zikr denotes the learned Christians and
Jews of the Prophet’s era who were expected to remember the message of the
earlier relations. If some Muslim Ulema arrogate the pronouncement of 16:43 to
themselves to support the deeply misogynistic custom of triple Talaq, this
writer is compelled to say, God witnessing, that the obsessive misogyny and unmitigated disregard
of the misery of instantly divorced poor Muslim women has put a blinker on
their mind’s eye against what is clearly written in the Qur’an (about
time-framing of divorce as well as in the verse 16:43), or has turned their
spiritual bearing upside down that they are telling lie upon lie about the
Qur’an to defend the triple Talaq – God knows best...

Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

It is notable,
however, that despite the fact that Islam is the dominant religion of Pakistan,
no organised effort to train and appoint female Qazis is in evidence. Without
the pressure of being a minority faith, female Qazis in Pakistan could
transform the way women see their rights and options within the marital
relationship. In not having to turn to male Qazis, always eager to tell women
to ‘bear it’...

Arshad Alam, New Age Islam

Arshad Alam, New Age Islam

Laws of blasphemy only bring disrepute to the Muslim world. Given that
it has no sanction in the holy Quran, Muslims themselves should protest against
such a discriminatory law within their midst. After all, of they believe that
they should get a free right of expression, then it is only logical that
followers of other religious traditions and those having a different
interpretation of Islam should also be given the same rights. ...

Roshan Shah, New Age Islam

Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, provides rich resources for developing
theologies of interfaith and inter-community understanding, dialogue and
solidarity, an urgent necessity in today's world. In this regard, the works of
numerous Indian Sufis are particularly significant because they lived and wrote
in a multi-religious context, addressing and attracting people of different
faiths—Muslims, Hindus and others. Some of them developed understandings of
Islam and other faiths that went beyond narrowly-constructed communal
boundaries, defying the empty and soulless ritualism that served to divide
communities from each other.....

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

The Jamiat strongly opposed the World Sufi Forum calling it a political
stunt of the Indian government to divide the Muslim community over "Sufism
vs Wahhabism". At that time,
Maulana Madani proclaimed: “Sufism is nothing” and that the World Sufi Forum was
an NDA bid to "divide the Muslims". In a direct rebuttal to the World
Sufi Forum, another leading figure of the Jamiat, Maulana Arshad Madani stated:
“Sufism is no sect of Islam and is not found in the Quran”, while accusing the
Modi government of "trying to create acrimony in the Muslim
community"....

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

The Jurists of Islam must know that in Islamic Law only the best of
past precedents are valid for any era and those not relevant to the era or
cause injustice to any individual or group must be set aside. Hence, no matter
which Imams, Caliphs or scholars approved of triple Talaq, they approved it for
their time – that is more than a thousand years ago. They never claimed their
rulings to be binding for the posterity for all time – a point Imam Abu Hanifa
made categorically as mentioned above in this article. So let there be no dilly
dallying in declaring constitutionally invalid what is sinful, unlawful,
oppressive and immensely dehumanizing to women and gross violation of human
rights…..

Rashid Samnakay, New Age Islam

This tragedy besets only the people determined not to use their
thinking ability, that Quran, their Book they take their oaths upon extols them
over and over again to apply and warns of consequences if ignored.

Because, this ‘thinking’ is hand-balled to the religious brigade who in
selfishness and greed for power; stripped of any understanding of welfare and
unity of humanity. They therefore ply their politics in the name of their
religion(s). It is here that the maxim to separate religion and politics is
valid and imperative and must be acted upon sooner rather than later.

Should not then all our efforts be directed first towards eliminating
it through enlightenment and knowledge based education and so do away with the
self-promoting fat-cats; that the Quran calls Mutrifeen!....

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

There is no doubt, about a rising tide of Islamophobia, but a vast
section of the American/ Western population does sympathize with Muslims as
reflected by their spontaneous protest against President Trump’s Executive
Order banning travel to America from seven predominantly Muslim countries [3],
and acceptance of millions of refuges from Muslim lands [4].Hence OBM’s letter
under review has no leg to stand on and is in fact no more than an attempt to appropriate
the Prophet’s mission of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation for terrorizing
people and repelling them away from Islam, rather than offering peace and
compassion and inviting people to Islam….

Farooq Sulehria

Farooq Sulehria

Manchester, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm or even 9/11 cannot be explained
as mere blowback. Instead, they involve a Takfiri method. The driving force
behind this method is the ideology of religious fundamentalism that justifies violence
against ‘infidels’. The problem with blowback theorists is their inability to
confront Islamic fundamentalism. It remains politically correct and safe to
scream blowback....

Radhika Iyengar

Radhika Iyengar

Nikah Halala is a law that requires a woman to marry and sleep with
another man in order to return to her first husband. There have been instances
where the husband regrets divorcing his wife through triple Talaq and in the
hope of reconciliation, hands over his divorced wife to another man for
marriage, under the condition that the latter would divorce the woman the next
day. Muta (conditional marriage), however, is considered to be a sin in Islam
and the Sharia law does not permit it. The husband is therefore considered a
sinner....

Shakil Shamsi, Tr. New Age Islam

Shakil Shamsi

After all, the shameless terrorists of
Kashmir spew venom against India rather than Pakistan. These gun-toting terrorists emerging as the
blemish on the name of Islam are criticizing Indian Muslims, whereas the most
shameless terrorists of the world are those who are drowning Islam in blood. ....

Moin Qazi, New Age Islam

Moin Qazi, New Age Islam

Islamic doctrine provides for religious freedom. The Qur’an is very emphatic, “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (Q2:256) and “Will you then compel mankind, against their will, to believe?” (Q10:99) Neither the Qur’an nor the Prophetic tradition demands of Jews and Christians that they give up their religious identity and become Muslims unless they freely choose to do so. This is a categorical command, not just a statement. Islam prohibits oppression irrespective of the faith, gender, race or economic status of the victim or perpetrator. The Quran instructs, "Help one another in benevolence and piety, and help not one another in sin and transgression" (Q5:2)…..